Beautiful wedding vows touch our very essence. They express the reality that mankind is wired to embrace commitment in relationships, bound together by love.

Your marriage ceremony builds to the vows. Talk about drama. The rest of your life is defined by these few moments. That’s why the words you say are worth considering carefully. If you’re looking for inspiration, you can find the most exquisite expressions of love ever uttered in literary classics. These examples are not vows per se, but perhaps they’ll arouse your creative juices as you craft your own.

You may recognize these words from your childhood

What better place to start than with these touching sentiments expressed by that most lovable of literary characters, Winnie the Pooh, and authored by A.A. Milne:

“If ever there is tomorrow when we’re not together…there is something you must always remember. You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. But the most important thing is, even if we’re apart…I’ll always be with you.”

A more passionate approach

Okay, here’s a more passionate approach by the great Victor Hugo as it appeared in his watershed novel, “Les Miserables:”

“Love participates of the soul itself. It is of the same nature. Like it, it is the divine spark; like it, it is incorruptible, indivisible, imperishable. It is a point of fire that exists within us, which is immortal and infinite, which nothing can confine, and which nothing can extinguish. We feel it burning even to the very marrow of our bones, and we see it beaming in the very depths of heaven…”

This one one smolders

Check out this smoldering passage from Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë:

“He’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same…my great thought in living is himself. If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger. I should not seem a part of it.”

Here are a couple of beauties from The Princess Bride

Do you remember the movie, “The Princess Bride?” It was written by William Goldman who wrote this gem:

“Do I love you? My God, if your love were a grain of sand, mine would be a universe of beaches.”

Here’s another from Princess Bride:

“I have not known a night when your visage did not accompany me to sleep. There has not been a morning when you did not flutter behind my waking eyelids…”

“Love is not breathlessness…”

Here’s a beauty from the novel, “Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, by Louis de Bernieres:

“Love is a temporary madness; it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides. And when it subsides, you have to make a decision: You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement. It is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being ‘in love,’ which any fool can do. Love itself is what is left over when being ‘in love’ has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Those who truly love have roots that grow toward each other underground, and when all the pretty blossoms have fallen from their branches, they find that they are one tree and not two.”

Let’s end with this beauty by the great Russian writer, Boris Pasternak, and the romantic sentiments expressed in Dr. Zhivago:

“You and I, it’s as though we have been taught to kiss in heaven and sent down to earth together, to see if we know what we were taught.”

Whether these speak to you or not, use them to help you think outside the box as you consider the most important words you’ll ever speak.

Don’t forget that Denon & Doyle can provide beautiful ceremony music. And when the vows are done, and it’s time to party, Denon & Doyle specializes in packing your dance floor with the finest, customized wedding entertainment around.